Interesting facts from World War II

1. In Central Africa in the middle of World War II, more than 500 Italian troops were ordered to defend a field airport. They had strong concrete permanent positions, sufficient ammunition, and even two German-supported guns. Two powerful 88-meter cannons and sufficient ammunition, but the attacking British army only had more than 400 people and did not even have decent heavy weapons. The British commander basically had no hope of this attack and had even prepared it. They planned to retreat, but the strange thing was that the attack had just started. After the British army fired a few rounds of bullets, the Italians raised the white flag. The Italian commander said to the British commander seriously: "We have fired the last bullet. "However, there were mountains of ammunition around the Italians, and when the British officer asked again, the other party actually said: "We didn't find the crowbar and couldn't open those damn ammunition boxes!"

2. A joint force of 15,000 U.S. and Australian troops attacked a Japanese-occupied Kiska Island. After preparing for a 2-hour bombardment, the U.S.-Australian coalition landed and lost 25 soldiers in the battle. Controlling the island, of course, if there are indeed Japanese defenders on the island, this casualty number should be expanded.

3. In the famous "Wolfpack" operation, a German U-boat hit an Allied transport ship loaded with military supplies and de-tona-tor. After being hit, there was a big explosion, and all kinds of things were blown up all over the sky. The excited captain of the German U-boat ordered the submarine to come up to watch his own achievements. Unfortunately, an M4 Sherman was blown into the sky. The tank just fell down and sank the submarine... and this submarine became the only submarine in the world to be sunk by a tank so far.

4. The Allied forces landed in Normandy. The commander of a German ace tank battalion with almost no defeats on the European battlefield may have been carried away. He directly led his subordinates and the newly equipped new powerful Tiger tanks. Driving to the beach and firing at Allied warships, his courage is extremely commendable! But unfortunately, after they only fired one round of shells, the giant guns on the Allied 30,000-ton battleship blasted these new tanks back to the state of parts.

5. In a port where the two sides are in a stalemate, the German minelayers mine every Monday. three. Mines were mined every five days, while British minesweepers came every Tuesday. Four. Liu went to clear mines, and this went on for a long time, until one day the British commander ignored the routine mine clearing operation because of other things. The German minesweeper that came to mine the next day was destroyed by the German minesweeper he had laid the day before. The mine exploded and sank... When the British army rescued the German officer who fell into the water, the other party asked the British officer very angrily: "How can you be so irresponsible as a mine clearing force! This is absolutely not allowed in our army!" The gentleman British have always felt sorry for this, so they have been giving these rescued German soldiers good treatment until the end of the war and sending them back home.

6. During the Anti-Japanese War, one of Li Zhongren’s troops had a newly recruited Shandong soldier. When the Shandong soldier was sleeping, his companions put away his gun. When he woke up, he found that the gun was missing. (Throwing a gun back then meant beheading.) I was so frightened that I broke into a cold sweat, so I didn’t say anything to anyone. I just took three grenades and went to the Japanese position when it was dark. A group of Japanese soldiers happened to be gathered there. Let's warm up together, so three grenades are fired directly to blow up a large area, and then we carry three rifles and a crooked machine gun and run back, and also carry a box of bullets. During the run back, they even He killed 8 Japanese soldiers who came to pursue him. Later, it was calculated that he wounded and killed 23 Japanese soldiers in this private operation. He also seized three 38 rifles and a machine gun. When the morale of the national army was low, It was a miracle at the time. Later, this person was awarded the Blue Sky and White Sun Medal. Some people say that this person is the ancestor of the Chinese special forces.

7. When the Soviet Union sent troops to Inner Mongolia, a certain unit of the Japanese Army’s most elite Kwantung Army (known as the flower of the Japanese Army) was ordered to defend a certain fortress. It may be that they have fought many wars in China and are used to it. The Mijia rifles on Tubal Road actually sent a cavalry regiment of nearly 1,000 people to sneak attack the Soviet army, hoping to catch the opponent off guard. The Soviet unit they attacked at that time was a purely mechanized unit. But the so-called bushido spirit still made them pick up their sabers and ride their horses towards the opponent's tanks and armored vehicles... As a result, this Soviet army ate horse meat for a month to improve their food...

1 . The first German soldier to die on the battlefield was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937).

The first American soldier to die on the battlefield was killed by the Soviets (Finland, 1940).

The highest-ranking person on the list of U.S. war casualties was Major General Leslie McNair, and the person who killed him was the U.S. Army Air Corps.

2. The youngest American soldier in the war was Calvin, who served in the Navy. Graham was only 12 years old at the time. While recuperating in the rear, he was found to have falsely reported his age and was prosecuted by the military (later vindicated by the U.S. Congress)

3. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the name of the U.S. Navy commander was cincus (pronounced the same as sinkus in English, meaning "sink us"). The mascot of the U.S. Army's 45th Infantry Division is a Nazi swastika.

The name of Hitler’s private train was “Amerika”. The above three points were quickly corrected due to their bad influence.

4. The U.S. Army Air Corps has a higher death rate than the Marine Corps. The probability of an aviation soldier dying in action during the 30 missions required to return to the rear is 71%.

5. Generally speaking, there is no such thing as "average" pilots. You're either an ace or you deserve bad luck. For example, Japan's ace pilot Hiro Nishizawa shot down more than 80 planes, but he died in a cargo plane accident.

6. Generally speaking, one out of every five rounds of ammunition loaded on a fighter jet is a tracer bullet to facilitate aiming at the target. This is obviously a mistake. Tracer bullets have different ballistic characteristics than ordinary bullets over long distances, so if your tracer bullet hits the target, it means that the other 80% of the bullets you fired have missed. To make matters worse, tracer bullets let your target know which direction he is being hit. The worst thing is not the above. If you load all the tracer bullets at the end of the magazine, it is tantamount to telling your enemy when you are out of bullets, and you definitely don't want to do that. So troops who abandoned tracer rounds found their hit rate and loss rate increased by a factor of two, respectively.

7. As the Allied forces moved to the Rhine, they moved up to Winston. From Churchill to General Patton to ordinary soldiers, the first thing they did was to pee. The above two celebrities even took photos as a souvenir.

8. German Me-264 bombers were able to bomb New York, but the latter lacked valuable targets.

9. The reason why the German submarine U-120 sank was that a toilet on the boat failed to operate.

10. The first batch of "Germans" captured in the Normandy landings were several Koreans. They were first recruited by the Japanese army. Later, the Soviet army captured them and they began to serve in the Soviet army. Later, the Germans captured them. This led them to serve in the German army again until they were captured by the US military.

11. After a fierce firepower preparation, 35,000 American and Canadian soldiers landed on Kiska Island. 21 soldiers died in the firefight! ! . If there were Japanese on the island, this number of casualties might be even higher.

12 In North Africa, the 5,000-strong Italian army disarmed on the spot after encountering a roadblock set up by a company of British troops

13 The British commander asked over the radio whether the tank crew had been captured How many prisoners? The answer was 1 acre for officers and 9 acres for soldiers.

14 Since there were too many prisoners of war, the British army could not build prisoner of war camps. They just asked the quartermaster to give the Italian prisoners of war raw materials and let them build their own prisoner of war camps to lock themselves up.

15 A German officer discovered that two British soldiers were holding down almost a company of Italian prisoners of war. In order to free them, he shot at the British soldiers. As a result, the Italians finally started running, but towards the British position.

16. During the siege of Tobruk, Rommel inspected the position early in the morning and found that the defense area of ??an elite Italian musketeer battalion was empty, except for a helmet with black chicken feathers (this kind of black chicken feathers) It is the mascot of this Italian unit. In other words, this battalion was all captured without firing a shot)

Torpedo changed its mind

March 1942 In the North Sea of ??Europe in September, the weather was extremely cold, but the war of "World War II" was still raging. On this day, the British battleship "Trineda" and a German destroyer that had been withdrawn from the battlefield met in a narrow road, and a fight was inevitable. The German destroyers soon ran out of ammunition and had to turn around and flee. The "Trineda", filled with hatred, pursued at full speed with murderous intent and sent a powerful torpedo into the torpedo tube. When the "Trineda" chased it to less than 500 meters away from the German ship, which was unable to fight back, the torpedo flew out of the launch tube.

To conduct a torpedo attack from such a distance is tantamount to execution with the muzzle of the gun pressed against the forehead. I saw a sharp wave thrown out from the tail of the torpedo, hitting the German ship at a speed of 45 knots. The Germans were in a panic, and some even jumped into the sea in advance to avoid the heartbreaking explosion. The British enthusiastically crowded onto the bow deck to watch the Germans' final moments.

A miracle happened - the torpedo suddenly turned, drew a beautiful arc, turned around and rushed towards its master enthusiastically. The British and Germans were dumbfounded. They had never been so surprised.

With a "boom", the middle part of the "Trineda" suffered fatal damage and sank to the bottom of the sea half an hour later. The poor British did not understand what happened until their death. People hesitated. Speculation: If the Almighty God had not done anything, it could only be that the Germans used some overly advanced defense weapons. The scientists who invented and built these torpedoes cannot believe that the torpedo's steering wheel or rudder wings were deformed by freezing and caused this British tragedy and German comedy, because this possibility is so small that it is almost impossible.